Comment by amarant

Comment by amarant 2 days ago

193 replies

View on Hacker News

How so? In Sweden we have digital ID and it's great! Super practical and I struggle to think of how it would be used to spy on citizens, given that it has the same legal protections as banks have regarding your account transactions etc.

Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the banks servers anyway, so it's not really a new capability.

gclawes a day ago

It's not really that a digital ID can be used to spy on people (governments can already do this to a pretty large degree without needing spyware). It's that it's a permission system that can be instantly updated and centrally managed by people that have legal authority to spy on you.

If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your digital ID to do most commercial interactions (banking, buying things, travel, etc), it means the government can revoke your ability to do any of those commercial interactions (or even other things that aren't strictly commercial, think "travel papers" for driving out of state).

And it doesn't even have to be in response to criminal actions. You too too many trips this year? Well, you've used up your CO2 budget as a citizen, have fun not buying CO2-intensive food (meat). Said something racist online? Well we certainly can't let a person like you buy a car now, can we?

And yes, things like credit cards and credit scores are centrally managed to a degree, and Visa/Mastercard can deny transactions for somewhat-arbitrary reasons (they're actually fairly legally limited in how they can do this, it's not totally arbitrary). But these things are not tied into every aspect of your life (your bank doesn't necessarily know how many miles you've driven this year), whereas states can (or can invent the legal authority to) tie a digital ID into everything.

Reply View 30 replies
  • thatfrenchguy a day ago

    > If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your digital ID to do most commercial interactions (banking, buying things, travel, etc), it means the government can revoke your ability to do any of those commercial interactions (or even other things that aren't strictly commercial, think "travel papers" for driving out of state).

    The government can already do this today in the US, they can put your ID on a fly denylist, your passport on a "always go to secondary screening list" (ask anyone who's ever been to Iran on vacation and then decided to travel to the US) and your license plate on a wanted list.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • nephihaha 21 hours ago

      The USA will probably get a lite version. The PRC already has the most severe version. The EU will introduce something severe and pretend otherwise. (And the UK will copy them while pretending not to.)

      Reply View 0 replies
  • matips a day ago

    Actually Visa and MasterCard used their position to influence on business like Steam or Pornhub.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • nephihaha 4 hours ago

      They wield way too much power. I've never understood what happened with American Express and Diners Club. These used to be major credit cards which have gone into heavy decline.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • myrmidon a day ago

    I completely agree with your main point, but the state supervised CO2 budget strikes me as a bad example; I see no real way to prevent companies and citizens from "externalizing costs" in the form of environmental damage except by regulation that restricts (historically, we did not get rid of leaded gas by gentle admonishment either).

    Reply View 0 replies
  • amarant 17 hours ago

    But my digital ID is in addition of my physical one, it's not a replacement.

    It provides convenience, and the only thing I'd lose of it was hypothetically revoked(the government has no such powers, and are unlikely to gain them, more on that later) is that convenience.

    The reason the government is unlikely to gain those powers is that it would require a change in the grundlag, and such changed has to be approved twice, and there has to be an election between the two approvals.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • sofixa a day ago

    > It's that it's a permission system that can be instantly updated and centrally managed by people that have legal authority to spy on you.

    How is it a permission system? It's a way to prove your identity safely, online. No proposal/implementation that I'm aware of (maybe outside of China, but I'm not familiar enough) that actually conditionally does so based on preconditions and blocks you from actions. It would probably be actively illegal to do so in multiple countries.

    > But these things are not tied into every aspect of your life (your bank doesn't necessarily know how many miles you've driven this year)

    I mean, that's not true. LexisNexis is the company many car vendors send your driving data to, to be bought by insurance companies to do adaptive pricing. Banks don't necessarily need that data, but if they did, they could buy it too.

    Which is why it's better if it's the government - there can be laws, regulations, pressure, judicial reviews to ensure that only legitimate uses are fine, and no such discrimination is legal. Take a look at credit scores in the US - they're run by private for profit companies, sold to whoever wants them, so credit scores have become a genuine barrier to employment, housing, etc. If this were managed by a state entity (like in France, Banque de France stores all loan data, and when someone wants to give you a loan, they check with them what your current debts are, and if you have defaulted on any recently; that's the only data they can get and use), there could be strong controls on who accesses the data and uses it for what.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • ori_b 21 hours ago

      > How is it a permission system? It's a way to prove your identity safely, online.

      Can someone revoke your ability to prove your identity? To pick an example, say, the far right wins an election and decides that trans people need to go back to their birth genders, and revokes the validity for the identifiers of anyone that has transitioned.

      Reply View 3 replies
      • vablings 21 hours ago

        This has already happened without digital ID ?

        Reply View 2 replies
  • mcdonje a day ago

    I was with you until your 3rd paragraph. Why are you carrying water for climate change accelerationists and racists?

    The examples don't even make sense historically. Haven't you noticed that most governments are failing to decarbonize, and government force against citizens is usually against the left?

    Reply View 18 replies
    • Y_Y a day ago

      You don't have to be a racist to be accused of racism.

      Reply View 8 replies
      • sofixa a day ago

        "said something racist" is what OP said

        Reply View 7 replies
    • pessimizer a day ago

      Because in a free country you have the right to be a climate skeptic and a racist?

      Being a racist is mostly useless and self-serving, but if you make any particular scientific position illegal, it's identical to having state defined science. That's how we got people passing bills to define pi and Lysenkoism. It's how we institutionalized chattel slavery and sometimes teaching black people to read punishable by death.

      The goal of government isn't to promote your "correct" opinions. The goal of government should be summarize the beliefs of a fully-informed public in order to act on their behalf.

      Reply View 8 replies
      • jay_kyburz 21 hours ago

        >The goal of government should be summarize the beliefs of a fully-informed public in order to act on their behalf.

        I fully agree with your position here, but do you think the government has a roll in making sure the public is not misled or believes things that "experts" consider to be false? Do you think expert opinions should carry more weight that the average Joe?

        I think my position is that the government is a tool we, the taxpayer, should use to investigate things and educate us of its findings. That this should be done in an open and transparent way so that we can trust the results. I don't think for profit companies should responsible for educating people. (sorry for the tangent)

        Reply View 0 replies
      • mcdonje a day ago

        You're kinda missing the point. It's quite common for "free speech absolutists" to defend racism and other forms of bigotry, but not much else.

        Reply View 6 replies
komali2 a day ago

> Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the banks servers anyway, so it's not really a new capability.

It's a single point of failure. Digital ID servers on creation because as valuable to compromise as value_of_bank_hack*bank_count plus whatever other services are rolled in.

Furthermore now only one warrant is needed, or one illegal executive order. Take the USA as a live example - legal protections aren't actually real, a government official with enough political power can just do whatever they want while the courts struggle to keep up, and then just ignore court orders.

If your identity is spread out in many different ways, at least then there's more friction to compromise. Just because one bank capitulates doesn't mean the actor immediately has health information on you, for example. Just because the unemployment office capitulates doesn't mean the actor has your financial records.

Reply View 38 replies
  • noduerme a day ago

    I think a lot of people in the US are clinging to the hope that this type of friction, along with judicial decisions, will cause the process of removing our legal protections to stall out. I'm not optimistic that this is the case, because the party currently driving the federal incursion on private and state-held data is the one that until recently was opposed to things like national ID. Anything can be done in the name of protecting people from N, if you can get a majority to be afraid of N.

    Reply View 36 replies
    • pfannkuchen a day ago

      I don’t really get why people seem convinced that the government is removing protections for all citizens under a smokescreen of illegal immigration handling, as opposed to taking limited and temporary measures to deal with an unusual situation.

      My current interpretation is that they are fear mongering about violence because they are actually way more racist than they admit publicly, and might want to remove more people than they were letting on initially.

      So okay you can definitely disagree with that, and how you feel about it can definitely be influenced by how much you feel threatened (personally or network) and that’s valid.

      But why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general? Do we think that the borders were opened intentionally to fabricate this “crisis”? If not, it would be such a huge coincidence, because there are a zillion reasons to be concerned about the demographic situation without needing to use it as a smokescreen, what are the odds that this problem organically appeared and then they happen to be able to take advantage of it?

      Note that I’m not asserting that the borders weren’t opened intentionally to fabricate this problem to which they can react with a “solution”, that sounds exactly like something a government would do. I just don’t hear anyone saying that out loud, at least, and having personal network or moral values or whatever threatened and reacting to that just seems a lot more likely to me as a reason why people feel like the world is ending.

      Reply View 33 replies
      • RHSeeger a day ago

        > I don’t really get why people seem convinced that the government is removing protections for all citizens under a smokescreen of illegal immigration handling, as opposed to taking limited and temporary measures to deal with an unusual situation.

        Probably because the actions being taken are against people of every category; illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and naturally born citizens.

        As has been noted, _anyone_ not being entitled due process means _nobody_ is entitled to due process. Because then can kidnap you, claim you're "of a group not entitled to due process", and do whatever they want to you. And you can't push back because you're not in that group... because you need due process to do that.

        > But why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general?

        At some point, you have to call a duck a duck. They're doing things that despotically authoritarian would do, over and over. They may or may not _think_ that's what their goal is, but it clearly is.

        Reply View 15 replies
      • komali2 a day ago

        > what are the odds that this problem organically appeared and then they happen to be able to take advantage of it?

        Quite low. Borders weren't open to fabricate an excuse to engage in authoritarianism - the excuse was simply fabricate, whole-cloth, with no basis in reality to justify it.

        There is no immigration problem in the USA. Large portions of the American economy are dependent on immigration, documented or otherwise. Immigrants, documented or otherwise, commit less crimes per-capita than USA citizens.

        So, the current government is using immigration as a flash-point to get themselves elected, and as an ongoing distraction away from their failure to address their other platform (affordability). Getting to be more authoritarian is the stated goal, based on the plan outlined in "Project 2025."

        Reply View 12 replies
      • noduerme a day ago

        >> why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general

        You stated this very well.

        But I do think it's a ruse. I don't have a problem with enforcing the law on illegal immigration.[0] But I do think the deployment of National Guard and in some cases Marines on American streets, allegedly to disperse anti-ICE protests, is a long game to make sure that there will be no judicial obstacles in the way if MAGA loses the 2028 election fair and square, cries foul that the election was stolen, decides to send in their own slate of electors, and faces nationwide protests.

        I live in Portland. I see the ridiculous cosplay of protesters outside the ICE detention facility. I see the absurdity of deploying troops to face off against them. If these clowns can be used as a casus belli to declare war and use the US military against the civilian population, then it will be no stretch to do so when a large portion of the population rises up to demand a proper electoral count in 2028. That's the scenario I see when I see the willy-nilly, unnecessary use of federalized troops on American soil.

        And for the record, I'm a registered Republican and mostly libertarian.

        [0] I am not anti-immigration, and I don't view immigration as a "demographic problem". I don't care what race people are as long as they are coming here for the right reasons and want to integrate and be productive members of our society. I was also an illegal immigrant in Europe for years. I accept the fact that countries have the right to decide who they want to accept as citizens, and that breaking those rules may damage your ability to become a citizen of the country you want to be accepted into. And that going there illegally may carry certain risks.

        Reply View 2 replies
      • wkat4242 a day ago

        > But why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general? Do we think that the borders were opened intentionally to fabricate this “crisis”?

        Maybe because many things Trump does and says are blatant lies and shameless despotic authoritarian ones? Ignoring courts, ignoring the constitution especially the first amendment, using his office for personal gain. I don't think I have to give examples because they're just too many. Only last week he pardoned a convicted drug dealer who was Hondurese president while planning to invade Venezuela and "just killing people" because of drugs for which there isn't even any evidence. It was just the last of many (including silk road captain Ross Ulbricht). Anyway that's just one of the recent things.

        And the borders were never actually open. It's really hard to migrate to the US and the illegals do all the work the Americans won't do for almost nothing.

        The real problem with public safety is the huge income gaps, leading to disenfranchised ghettos with festering organised crime gangs. A lot of them might be immigrants but many are born Americans. The thing they have in common that they are poor and have no upward opportunities.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • GoblinSlayer a day ago

    There are schemes, where e.g. KYC would require centralized storage of identifying information, which is equivalent or stronger than Digital ID. I'm not sure why Digital ID servers would store your health records.

    Reply View 0 replies
guyomes a day ago

The best implementation I know of digital ID is the one in Estonia. It comes with a data tracker, such that each citizen can see who exactly has been looking at their data [1].

[1]: https://e-estonia.com/digital-id-protecting-against-surveill...

Reply View 4 replies
  • wiz21c a day ago

    Done more or less like that in Belgium too. Basically, if any civil servant look at your data, this is recorded in the "Banque Carrefour de la Sécurité Sociale". Your eid is used to authentify/authorize you on various state web site (which is OK)

    Reply View 2 replies
    • satyamkapoor a day ago

      Have been using this service in Belgium and it really helps you gain trust. Ofcourse no one knows if there is still a back door

      Reply View 1 reply
      • ekianjo a day ago

        You should totally assume by default that there is a backdoor. Makes no sense whatsoever for the authorities to grant themselves less power.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • kube-system a day ago

    US credit reports also show you who is looking at them. Does visibility really matter when mandatory participation is normalized as a part of functioning in society?

    Reply View 0 replies
greenavocado a day ago

Your digital id is great until your leadership decides you need to be conscripted and sent to their meat grinder and the penalty for failing to appear for your death sentence is being cut off from food and water because everything is linked.

The idea of all these digital documents is never a problem until you go through the exercise of figuring out what it will all be used for (controlling you).

Reply View 31 replies
  • ace32229 a day ago

    Digital ID makes no difference to this whatsoever. If a government wanted to cut you off from utilities they could make it happen within hours already.

    Same with conscription, which needless to say was invented and effectively implemented prior to the invention of digital anything.

    Reply View 11 replies
    • lambchoppers a day ago

      You should maybe read some articles about modern situations where people dodged conscription before assuming what is practical today. The average person who hasn't thought about it for a week is certainly in trouble but..

      Reply View 7 replies
      • theoreticalmal a day ago

        Why is the solution to avoiding conscription being able to hide rather than making the conscription not happen in the first place?

        Reply View 6 replies
    • ekianjo a day ago

      > Digital ID makes no difference to this whatsoever.

      Of course it does. It makes it possible to track exactly where you are and what you are doing. So it pushes the balance of power towards the authorities.

      Reply View 2 replies
      • sofixa a day ago

        > It makes it possible to track exactly where you are and what you are doing

        No??? What do you imagine, that every single transaction you make, like buying bread, will require a Digital ID? Why on earth would you imagine that?

        Reply View 1 reply
        • ekianjo an hour ago

          if your digital ID is tied to your phone (which is eventually where things are going), that is exactly what is going to happen. There is no reason that it would stop somewhere in the middle.

          Reply View 0 replies
  • jack_tripper a day ago

    [flagged]

    Reply View 18 replies
    • eitland a day ago

      1. This is a wild exaggeration: There are lots of men walking in Ukrainian streets.

      2. Why single out Ukraine here? Isn't this what any country does with people who don't appear for the draft? (Unless they can pay a doctor to diagnose them with bone spurs or something?)

      Reply View 8 replies
      • jack_tripper a day ago

        > 1. There are lots of men walking in Ukrainian streets.

        With the right papers clearing them of draft obligations, sure.

        >2. Why single out Ukraine here?

        Because this is the best example right now that everyone knows and can somewhat relate to. Unless you happen to know any other western country currently doing this.

        Reply View 7 replies
    • victorbjorklund a day ago

      Have you even been to Ukraine lately? you can walk on the streets of Kyiv and there is so many men walking on the streets without getting picked up. I've been walking the street as a man and and from the looks of it you can't tell if I'm a foreigner or a Ukrainian and I never been stopped and they never tried to conscript me. Do some people get conscripted in Ukraine and Russia? Sure.

      But it's just an exaggeration claiming that anybody walking the streets are just grabbed and thrown into a van and shipped to a conscription office. That is not what is happening.

      Reply View 4 replies
      • jack_tripper a day ago

        >Do some people get conscripted in Ukraine and Russia? Sure.

        It's not that they get conscripted that's the problem, it's that people are being chased and violently thrown into vans of the street without any kind of warning or check of conscription status beforehand, Which I argued is proof the government doesn't need any kind of digital ID to oppress you..

        There's video evidence of such events online, check X and Telegram. Just because it doesn't happen in the capital and places where tourists like you go to, doesn't mean it's somehow OK or that it's not happening in other regions like villages where it's less likely important people with influence live unlike the capital or large cities.

        Reply View 3 replies
    • iamnothere a day ago

      Useless doomerism. There are many cracks to hide in, most investigations are closed without a conviction, etc. You don’t need to have spy-level tradecraft to be a dissident.

      I wish this kind of nonsense “you are helpless” posting were forbidden by HN rules. It serves no useful purpose.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • jack_tripper a day ago

        Perfect HN comment: complains about useless doomerism in first sentence, then next sentence wishes for censorship of opposing options.

        Reply View 0 replies
    • greenavocado a day ago

      You missed the people that took what they could in cash and ran for the border

      Reply View 1 reply
      • jack_tripper a day ago

        I didn't miss anything. Lone deserters spread out, are more tricky and resource intensive to catch in the wilderness of mountainous border areas with rough terrain, than in flat densely populated areas like city or village streets that can be easily patrolled by vans.

        Reply View 0 replies
lazylizard a day ago

the singaporean "singpass" has been an amazing convenience. at this point its like why is any company still asking you to fill in personal particulars on forms? they should ask for access to singpass and you just authorize them.

you apply to or for anything.. and they just give you the option of authorizing via singpass.. and you use your passkey-like singpass app to authorize it... and its done!

you go to hospital and they need your medical records? singpass

you go to university and they need your academic history? singpass

you apply for bank loan? insurance? license? food handling permit? singpass

Reply View 5 replies
  • mitthrowaway2 a day ago

    Doesn't this mean that it's not only your hospital that sees your medical records, but... everyone who would otherwise only need your name and telephone number?

    Or is there some way to restrict which party gets which data?

    Reply View 3 replies
    • broeng a day ago

      I don't think any of the national id services I've heard of stores all your data in a centralized place. Usually the national id service only provides identification to the service providers that request it. Each service provider (like, your bank, hospital, pension provider) will store their own data as they've always done, they just use the service to identify you.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • Ekaros a day ago

      In Finland there is centralized database of all medical records. Which makes information transfer simpler. There is ofc risk of untheorized access. But for that reason legal system exists. You get audit trail and then can prosecute or fire those who accessed information unnecessarily.

      It is trade-off, but probably lot more accountable than paper records in big hospitals.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • lotsofpulp a day ago

    In the absence of a government solution like Singpass, the US and others will end up with an Apple/Alphabet solution.

    Reply View 0 replies
da_chicken a day ago

Sweden's population is only around 11 million people, and you're geographically concentrated in the southern mainland provinces or near Stockholm. Both of those make thing a lot more practical to manage and make it a lot harder to abuse because you don't have the scale to make profit as attractive, or the distance to make oversight more difficult. You're also relatively culturally similar.

It doesn't seem like those should matter so much, but it really does make everything about democracy easier.

Things get much weirder when the population isn't so low or isn't relatively concentrated.

Reply View 1 reply
  • amarant a day ago

    I mean, I can do all my voting, tax filings, etc. etc. All the way from Mexico, with no issues. You're right that most of that must of the Swedish population resides in the south, but, as someone who grew up in Northern Sweden, it's not like we're marginalised or anything, not really.

    Reply View 0 replies
ninalanyon a day ago

But Sweden has not so far required that you install state owned spy ware on your devices.

BankID is very convenient, I use it all the time here in Norway but, at least theoretically, it is a private initiative of the banks and not the state. It is not compulsory to have BankID.

Reply View 0 replies
abc123abc123 a day ago

Yes, it is the single most popular vector for scammers to fleece old people. Great! Add to that, that your identity is controlled by banks, not the government, and that banks can terminate you without any due process, and complaining can take weeks if not months, and there is no guaranteed positive outcome.

No thank you, I'll take no ID over ID any day, and at worst, a physical plastic card over a bullsh*t digital solution that is used to lock you out off society.

Sweden is really the worst possible approach, is authoritarian, and hands over the power to the banks controlling the digital ID system.

Reply View 2 replies
  • lifestyleguru a day ago

    Banks and fintechs turned really brazen with triggering invasive AML/KYC requests without any legal basis, even more invasive than tax offices. Nonchalantly freezing and locking funds and accounts. They oftentimes require the latest version of smartphone app working only on recent smartphones. I don't want my digital identity to depend on them.

    Reply View 0 replies
yehat a day ago

Sweet how the OP is about something that exactly corresponds to what EU wants badly too - chat control - but you decide to talk about Digital ID. OK wait a bit more, then your beautiful DID will start making more sense.

Reply View 2 replies
  • nephihaha a day ago

    It all amounts to the same thing, the use of tech to control the public.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • jeltz a day ago

    It was nephihaha who started talking about digital IDs.

    Reply View 0 replies
bouncycastle a day ago

For now you may need a warrant. However, after just a simple law change, it will all be available without a warrant. I'm not saying there will be a law change, only saying that it brings us one step closer to data.

Reply View 0 replies
victorbjorklund a day ago

There are downsides with it since you are at the mercy of the corporation that owns the Swedish Digital ID. ny services trying to use this Swedish digital ID who these banks don't like can be cut off at any point and you are not allowed to provide alternative logins so it's only allowed to use digital ID if you use it.

Reply View 3 replies
  • amarant 8 hours ago

    If course I'm allowed to use alternative logins. And besides, there are at least 2 generally accepted digital ID solutions in Sweden. BankID is older and more popular, but there's also Freja (I had to open the tax authorities login page to remember the name of this one) that's accepted in most places.

    There have been 0 incidents of any of the hysterical hypotheticals y'all are on about actually happening, maybe it's time for a reality check?

    Reply View 0 replies
  • ninalanyon a day ago

    > you are not allowed to provide alternative logins

    I can't speak for Sweden but that is not true in Norway where we also use BankID (I'm not sur but I think it originated in Norway).

    Reply View 1 reply
    • victorbjorklund 19 hours ago

      It's true for Sweden and Norway. BankID is owned by the banks in both countries. Both charge money from sites and orgs that use it.

      Reply View 0 replies
mananonhn a day ago

You're comparing a developed, mature nation to a developing one? Good one! Let's try doing this in middle east too!

Reply View 0 replies
nephihaha a day ago

The problem isn't where digital ID starts, it's where it ends. It will start by being benign enough, and end with the ability to cut off dissidents in an instant. I'm aware that some Swedes are already getting microchipped. If you want to be branded and tracked by the state, that is your choice... Don't force it on the rest of us.

Reply View 10 replies
  • Tor3 a day ago

    "I'm aware that some Swedes are already getting microchipped."

    If you mean Swedish dogs and cats, then yes. Otherwise, no.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • nephihaha 21 hours ago

      No, I meant people. There are people who have been chipped and boasting about it on YouTube.

      Reply View 3 replies
      • amarant 8 hours ago

        Hi I'm from Sweden.

        You shouldn't believe everything they say on YouTube.

        Also, the Bible is mostly lies, don't trust that either.

        I'm sure some idiot put a dog microchip in their hand for shits and giggles, but so what? Their hand their choice.

        Reply View 2 replies
  • oblio a day ago

    > I'm aware that some Swedes are already getting microchipped.

    Source?

    Reply View 4 replies
    • nephihaha 21 hours ago

      This from Newsweek in 2022 about Sweden.

      https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-tha...

      "In 2017, a railway company in Sweden began allowing travelers to load their ticket information onto the microchips implanted in their bodies, according to BBC News. Railway conductors were then able to use smartphones to detect the chip and confirm the travelers' tickets."

      Reply View 3 replies
      • vablings 21 hours ago

        This has nothing to do with the "state microchipping people" this is biohackers loading NFC train tickets onto a chip they chose to have implanted? The level of intellectual dishonesty is gross. You don't have to have an NFC chip and even if you did how would that be any more of a UUID than a LIDAR scan of your face?

        Reply View 0 replies
      • oblio 16 hours ago

        Buddy, you're talking about 4000 VOLUNTEERS in a country of 11 million people (0.04%).

        We can probably find more crack addicts in Sweden...

        Let put the brakes on these slippery slopes, otherwise we'll be afraid of our own shadows soon. Scepticism is fine, paranoia isn't.

        Reply View 1 reply
        • nephihaha 4 hours ago

          Those 4000 are bellwethers for whatever other impressionable idiots will follow them. (I'd forgotten it was that many, I thought it was a fraction of that.) Then it becomes mandatory, then compulsory, like so many other things.

          You mention crack addicts there. Yeah, they're kind of similar. With a new drug like cocaine, it starts with a handful of impressionable people who get given it cheap. Then they influence other people who take it up, and before you know it you have drug epidemic on your hands. (As most developed countries do.? The difference is that the ruling class doesn't openly encourage cocaine use, because it doesn't benefit them in anyway (other than doping up potential troublemakers).

          You should read some of the Fourth Industrial Revolution material that governments and their advisers put out. They are quite plain about where they want this to head. Transhumanism is sold as a means to improve us, but it can also be used as a means of control. (There is a lot of hypocrisy in such documents — how can one argue that we need to lower carbon emissions and at the same time engage in project which increase electricity usage? That seems contradictory at least for now, because even renewables generate have environmental issues. These data centres will gobble up more energy than people's homes do.)

          Reply View 0 replies
inglor_cz a day ago

In CZ, we have a so-far-somewhat-nonintrusive digital identity that is mostly used to access government services.

Yet we already had an interesting situation which shows just how complicated trust is. Sberbank, the Russian bank, was slated to issue digital identity certifications in March 2022. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and Sberbank got booted out of the country before actually gaining that capability.

What if it was March 2021 instead? How would we treat signatures on documents verified by Sberbank a day before the invasion etc.? What if the content of that document was really suspicious? Etc.

Reply View 0 replies
[removed] 2 days ago
[deleted]
Reply View 0 replies
brador a day ago

Swedish police use Palantirs gotham software. Your data is in.

Reply View 0 replies
p1dda a day ago

BankID isn't what they are proposing. Not in any way shape or form. Try learning about a topic before you make stupid comments like that.

Reply View 2 replies
  • BDPW a day ago

    What is so fundamentally different about DID proposed in the UK or the US then? I read through some of the documents about it and the data scoping that will be available, which isn't with something like BankID seem to be the only difference. What am I missing here?

    Reply View 0 replies
  • nephihaha a day ago

    Oh, that will come. It all comes from the same mentality.

    Reply View 0 replies
[removed] a day ago
[deleted]
Reply View 0 replies
[removed] a day ago
[deleted]
Reply View 0 replies
AndrewKemendo a day ago

Yeah that’s a nightmare for privacy if someone decides to use it against you.

Reply View 11 replies
  • amarant a day ago

    HOW would this hypothetical person use it against you?

    It's a driver's licence infringing on my privacy too? Cause they're mostly the same, at least the way they're implemented in Sweden

    Reply View 10 replies
    • bootsmann a day ago

      Note that the drivers license is actually worse because you cannot scope what information you present to the requester.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • GoblinSlayer a day ago

      In addition to the requesting party information about your activity can be sent to other parties for your safety.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • Saline9515 a day ago

      "Hey now guys we just voted this law, now you need to use your BankID to login to your phone the first time. Because, think of the children! And well, if you have pictures we deem forbidden, you'll be reported."

      Once the infrastructure for mass surveillance is available, States are tempted to use it.

      Also even if it may be ok in Sweden for cultural reasons, the rest of the world unfortunately isn't (but can enjoy private washing machines in exchange).

      Reply View 0 replies
    • AndrewKemendo a day ago

      How many ways can you slice a cake?

      The point is that the more identifiable information that the monopoly on violence has the easier it is for something, anything really, to be used against you should your tribal affiliation conflict with the ruling party.

      This is like politics 101

      Reply View 6 replies
      • dvdkon a day ago

        At least where I live, there's no extra information being gathered. The only difference is that I no longer have to physically go somewhere to deal with that information, because I can sign in to government services online.

        Information that was previously in paper form and scattered across various bureaus is now being digitised and centralised, but that's orthogonal to "digital ID"!

        Reply View 4 replies
      • amarant 8 hours ago

        Sounds more like crack addict conspiracy theories 101 tbh

        Reply View 0 replies
gxs 2 days ago

That’s sort of how all this type of policy is pushed through

Convenience - what you’re describing is convenience

It’s totally fine if you prioritize that over everything else, but my only thought here is that everyone should be crystal clear in what they are trading off for convenience

It’s convenient for the government too, tk have a single identifier to thread a persons entire life

We are, sadly, well beyond any expectation of privacy, but we should at least be aware of it and try to not make it worse

Reply View 15 replies
  • amarant 2 days ago

    Again,I struggle to think of how it'd be used gather any data not already available.

    Yes it's selling point is convenience. Convenience is good.

    In this particular case I disagree that there's a price in privacy. At least currently, and the way the Swedish electronic ID is implemented, I don't see it.

    With other variations there might be problems of course, though I'd worry more about someone messing up the security of it rather than privacy

    Reply View 14 replies
    • zug_zug 2 days ago

      I used to think like that. Now in my country we have a president who would use that to deport or target political opponents, track people who criticize Israel, etc.

      You can never put the genie back in the bottle and you never know who will be in charge in 20 years

      Reply View 8 replies
      • amarant a day ago

        Yeah but the US was never a full democracy. Part of the problem with the US is that the president has way too much power to begin with.

        If trump was elected prime minister of Sweden, he wouldn't have been able to do half the stuff he's done.

        Reply View 6 replies
      • sofixa a day ago

        > Now in my country we have a president who would use that to deport or target political opponents, track people who criticize Israel

        He can already do that?

        Reply View 0 replies
    • hexbin010 a day ago

      I struggle to see how it's a good thing for Sweden. I disagree convenience is a good thing.

      We can all play "I struggle to see" and throw out weak arguments but it does not advance the topic

      Reply View 4 replies
      • amarant a day ago

        You still haven't presented even a weak argument for how it infringes on privacy.

        You just said "privacy" and pretended that's an argument

        Reply View 3 replies
Saline9515 a day ago

"Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.

Reply View 15 replies
  • eru a day ago

    In the US (approximately) everyone has a social security number and a driver's license. In practice, those are equivalent to universal ID, just more annoying to use in everyday life.

    Reply View 14 replies
    • iamnothere a day ago

      Services do not regularly query your SSN or DL to determine if it is actively “in service” or is blocked. In fact most types of businesses don’t touch SSNs at all (the potential liability for mishandling it is radioactive). And the few that request licenses typically are only using it as part of a one-time KYC flow, there is no ongoing link to a central provider.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • eru 12 hours ago

        Yes, so you get all the downsides of

        > "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.

        but none of the upsides.

        Reply View 0 replies
    • Saline9515 a day ago

      Digital ID is also an identification system, social security number isn't. For instance you can't ID people on porn sites using it.

      Reply View 11 replies
      • eru a day ago

        Yes, so you get all the downsides of

        > "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.

        but none of the upsides.

        Reply View 3 replies
      • dvdkon a day ago

        You can't ID people on porn sites with what's implemented in most European countries either.

        I feel like what you mean by "digital ID" is very different to what others mean.

        Reply View 5 replies
      • amarant 8 hours ago

        This just shows you have no idea what you're talking about.

        Why would a porn site pay ten cents per visitor to get a legally binding id of its visitors? But even more importantly, why would anyone sign it?

        Y'all seem to think digital ID is some kind of super-cookie that tracks your every move online.

        It's not.

        Reply View 0 replies